The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion - Softcover

Steinberg, Leo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226771873 ISBN 13: 9780226771878

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1997

Synopsis

Originally published in 1983, Leo Steinberg's classic work has changed the viewing habits of a generation. After centuries of repression and censorship, the sexual component in thousands of revered icons of Christ is restored to visibility. Steinberg's evidence resides in the imagery of the overtly sexed Christ, in Infancy and again after death. Steinberg argues that the artists regarded the deliberate exposure of Christ's genitalia as an affirmation of kinship with the human condition. Christ's lifelong virginity, understood as potency under check, and the first offer of blood in the circumcision, both required acknowledgment of the genital organ. More than exercises in realism, these unabashed images underscore the crucial theological import of the Incarnation.

This revised and greatly expanded edition not only adduces new visual evidence, but deepens the theological argument and engages the controversy aroused by the book's first publication.

About this title

About the Author:

Leo Steinberg (1920-2011) was the Benjamin Franklin Professor Emeritus of the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0226771873
• ISBN 13: 9780226771878
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 425